NHIS engages stakeholders, plan to take legal action on health facilities over system cheat

The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in the Bole District has engaged it stakeholders at the Lecture Hall of the Bole Community Nurses and Midwifery College under the theme; “Achieving Universal Health Coverage; the Role of Stakeholders”.

The stakeholder engagement discussed measures to improve more acquisition of NHIS cards, and also take legal action on some health facilities that cheat the system to steal money from patients.

Addressing the media after the engagement, the Bole District NHIS Manager, Mr Mahama Shirazdeen said their engagements with stakeholders was key in order to strengthen all the loopholes within the service and the Bole Health management and its facilities.

According to him, there are things that the Bole District Hospital does which are beneficial but also engages in others that are questionable.

He advised the general public to come out with evidence of payments anytime there are issues with the hospital especially when one has a functioning NHIS card.

The Bole District NHIS Manager said very soon, their office will prosecute some facilities for their dubious ways in collecting people’s money even with a functioning NHIS card.

There was a power point projection by the Bole District Manager and the Savannah Regional Operations manager of the NHIS which indicates the Bole District NHIS in 2021, targeted about 60679 to register people on NHIS cards but exceeded the target and registered about 72261 representing 119.09%.

Mr Shiraz-Deen stated that “we have a target nationally of trying to achieve the universal health coverage and in achieving this targets the NHIA head office gave us a target of registering active membership of over 60,679 by the end of 2021.

"But at the end of 2021, we have been able to exceed our target by 72,261. We have also set up pragmatic steps to ensure that majority of people in the Bole enclave are registered with the scheme”.

Tunawura Sarfo Amantana who chaired the program tasked stakeholders to be citizens first before indulging in stealing the system.

The stakeholders meetings was attended by many dignitaries and key among them were the Bole District Health Director, the Presiding Member of the Bole District Assembly, Staff of Bole District Health Directorate, Staff of NHIS, Chiefs and Assembly Members.